Death Penalty Timeline
1930s - Executions reach the highest levels in
American history - average 167 per year.
Eighteenth Century B.C. - first established death
penalty laws.
1948 - The United Nations General Assembly
adopted the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights proclaiming a "right to life."
Eleventh Century A.D. - William the Conqueror
will not allow persons to be hanged except in
cases of murder.
1608 - Captain George Kendall becomes the first
recorded execution in the new colonies.
1632 - Jane Champion becomes the first woman
executed in the new colonies.
1767 - Cesare Beccaria's essay, On Crimes and
Punishment, theorizes that there is no justification
for the state to take a life.
Late 1700s - United States abolitionist movement
begins.
Early 1800s - Many states reduce their number of
capital crimes and build state penitentiaries.
1823-1837 - Over 100 of the 222 crimes
punishable by death in Britain are eliminated.
1834 - Pennsylvania becomes the first state to
move executions into correctional facilities.
1838 - Discretionary death penalty statutes
enacted in Tennessee.
1846 - Michigan becomes the first state to abolish
the death penalty for all crimes except treason.
1950-1980 - De facto abolition becomes the norm
in western Europe.
1958 - Trop v. Dulles. Eighth Amendment's
meaning contained an "evolving standard of
decency that marked the progress of a maturing
society."
1966 - Support of capital punishment reaches alltime low. A Gallup poll shows support of the
death penalty at only 42%.
1968 - Witherspoon v. Illinois. Dismissing
potential jurors solely because they express
opposition to the death penalty held
unconstitutional.
1970 - Crampton v. Ohio and McGautha v.
California. The Supreme Court approves of
unfettered jury discretion and non-bifurcated
trials.
June 1972 - Furman v. Georgia. Supreme Court
effectively voids 40 death penalty statutes and
suspends the death penalty.
1976 - Gregg v. Georgia. Guided discretion
statutes approved. Death penalty reinstated
1890- William Kemmler becomes first person
executed by electrocution.
January 17, 1977 - Ten-year moratorium on
executions ends with the execution of Gary
Gilmore by firing squad in Utah.
Early 1900s - Beginning of the "Progressive
Period" of reform in the United States.
1977 - Oklahoma becomes the first state to adopt
lethal injection as a means of execution.
1907-1917 - Nine states abolish the death penalty
for all crimes or strictly limit it.
1977 - Coker v. Georgia. Held death penalty is an
unconstitutional punishment for rape of an adult
woman when the victim is not killed.
1920s - 1940s - American abolition movement
loses support.
1924 - The use of cyanide gas introduced as an
execution method
December 7, 1982 - Charles Brooks becomes the
first person executed by lethal injection.
1984 - Velma Barfield becomes the first woman
executed since reinstatement of the death penalty.
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1986 - Ford v. Wainwright. Execution of insane
persons banned.
1986 - Batson v. Kentucky. Prosecutor who strikes
a disproportionate number of citizens of the same
race in selecting a jury is required to rebut the
inference of discrimination by showing neutral
reasons for his or her strikes.
1987 - McCleskey v. Kemp. Racial disparities not
recognized as a constitutional violation of "equal
protection of the law" unless intentional racial
discrimination against the defendant can be
shown.
1988 - Thompson v. Oklahoma. Executions of
offenders age fifteen and younger at the time of
their crimes is unconstitutional.
1989 - Stanford v. Kentucky, and Wilkins v.
Missouri. Eighth Amendment does not prohibit
the death penalty for crimes committed at age
sixteen or seventeen.
1989 - Penry v. Lynaugh. Executing persons with
mental retardation is not a violation of the Eighth
Amendment.
1993 - Herrera v. Collins. In the absence of other
constitutional grounds, new evidence of
innocence is no reason for federal court to order a
new trial.
1994 - President Clinton signs the Violent Crime
Control and Law Enforcement Act expanding the
federal death penalty.
1996 - President Clinton signs the Anti-Terrorism
and Effective Death Penalty Act restricting review
in federal courts.
1998 - Karla Faye Tucker and Judi Buenoano
executed.
November 1998 - Northwestern University holds
the first-ever National Conference on Wrongful
Convictions and the Death Penalty. The
Conference brings together 30 inmates who were
freed from death row because of innocence.
January 1999 - Pope John Paul II visits St. Louis,
Missouri, and calls for an end to the death
penalty.
April 1999 - U.N. Human Rights Commission
Resolution Supporting Worldwide Moratorium
On Executions.
June 1999 - Russian President, Boris Yeltsin,
signs a decree commuting the death sentences of
all of the convicts on Russia's death row.
January 2000 - Illinois Governor George Ryan
declares a Moratorium on executions and appoints
a blue-ribbon Commission on Capital Punishment
to study the issue.
2002 - Ring v. Arizona. A death sentence where
the necessary aggravating factors are determined
by a judge violates a defendant's constitutional
right to a trial by jury.
2002 - Atkins v. Virginia. the execution of
mentally retarded defendants violates the Eighth
Amendment's ban on crual and unusual
punishment.
January 2003 - Gov. George Ryan grants
clemency to all of the remaining 167 death row
inmates in Illinois because of the flawed process
that led to these sentences.
June 2004 - New York's death penalty law
declared unconstitutional by the state's high court.
March 2005 - In Roper V. Simmons, the United
States Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty
for those who had committed their crimes under
18 years of age was cruel and unusual
punishment.
This information came from the
Death Penalty Information Center
www.DeathPenaltyInfo.org
It is reprinted by the
Olympia WA Fellowship of Reconciliation
(360) 491-9093 www.olympiafor.org
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